Why I Wrote A Book About Internet Marketing and You Should Too

No doubt from my shameless self promotion across the web you may have heard now about my free ebook – Becoming a Clockwork Pirate. If not, you do now.

And though it’s not a real book, i.e. you can’t hold it in your hand or order it from Amazon, and it’s actually two thirds of the length of a normal non-fiction book; I really enjoyed writing it and think it’s a helpful experience for anyone working in internet marketing.

Everyone loves tweets, but they’re no more than throwaway comments. Even blog posts are rarely something you spend more than a few hours on. A book on the other hand is something that takes months of thought and effort to put together. This time stewing with the concept, the words and the proofing really means you put your heart and soul into it in a way that you don’t with short form writing

First up you need a big idea, there’s no way your going to be writing tens of thousands of words without a large theme or pattern. It’s a really helpful experience to look for this in your ideas and day to day work. It’ll give what you do new meaning and help you explain what you do to other people much more effectively. In writing a book about link building I was able to do a much better job clarifying what I really thought it was about and how it should be done. That’s made me a better link builder and what-ever your topic it’ll help you in a similar way.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll never have a problem with ideas, what you find tough is actually making them happen. A couple of years ago I ran a marathon, and the process of writing my ebook was very similar. I’d wanted to do it for years but it wasn’t until I begun the process did I really appreciate the enormity of the task. Coming up with an idea, deciding to do it and following through on that kind of commitment is not only rewarding it’ll make smaller challenges seem easy to deal with.

It’s a legacy – I’ll make no illusions about this being a lasting great piece of work, I hope I’ll go on to other excellent projects in the future but it’s nice to know should the un-thinkable happen there’s something there with your name on it. With the recent loss of a close SEO friend of mine Jaamit I’ve really realised that we’re on this planet for far too short a time than is really fair. Jaamit despite his early passing left behind some of the most helpful tweets and blog posts in the world of SEO, we should all strive to do something that adds to the world as a whole.